For Better or For Worse
by WingWoman
Summary: Jim and Pam struggle with their decisions after Casino Night. Begins where the season finale ends. Reviews are very much appreciated, but please be gentle, it's my very first fan fiction.


Could the human heart be torn in two? Her she was, so close to Jim and yet so much separated them. Maybe Roy wouldn't have fit in the narrow space between them, but his presence certainly could. She could almost feel his large body pressed up against her, carefully guarding her from the depths of Jim's eyes. However much she wished that she was alone with Jim, she wasn't.

"I'm sorry, I have to go." Her voice was cracking. She slipped around him as quickly and quietly as she could, terrified to damage the silence that had enveloped them. He didn't move to stop her as she ran through the doors and down the hall into the elevator.

Had she known all along that he loved her? Retrospectively she visited his actions. It's said that a clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory, and for Pam this was seemed to be true. She never had felt guilty to be around Jim, to be near to him, to laugh with him. Maybe that wasn't so much the sign of a bad memory; maybe it was a sign of a very good memory. She could only blame herself for choosing to see all the wrong things.

The elevator doors opened for her. The cool night breeze felt good against her skin as she stepped outside. She stood there for a minute, letting it clean her, letting the tears that had started to come as she left the office roll down her cheeks. There was no way for her to get home. Roy had left with the truck. She couldn't possibly ask Jim to drive her. Did she have to go back into the warehouse? Could she go back in?

He kissed so much differently than Roy. Roy always kissed her with passionate aggression, something that had always put Pam at ease. Nature had made her terribly, horribly shy, and it was so much easier for her to accept a kiss than to give one. Roy's rough and fiery kisses always left her amazed. But kissing Jim… he held her so gently, kissed her so tenderly, supported her in a way that was so different, so amazing…

She had to get out of here. She had to get home. Now. Extremely conscious of her red and puffy eyes she approached Phyllis, who was still happily rolling her dice on the Craps table. "Umm… hi," she mumbled, sniffling. "Can you could take me home?"

Phyllis was more observant than she had hoped. She immediately saw the tear stains on her face. "Oh, Pam! What's wrong?" she asked, truly concerned.

"Nothing. Really. I'll be fine as soon as I get home."

"Sure, of course I'll take you, let me just get Bob. He's getting drinks. Can you wait for a few minutes?"

"Actually, can I wait in your car?" She didn't know how much longer she could endure the stares of all her coworkers.

"Yeah, it's unlocked."

"Thanks, so much."

She had handled everything all wrong. She knew that without a doubt. She was sure that tonight she had lost Jim's friendship forever. What did it say about her, when she was too cowardly to even _talk_ to Jim after he had confessed his greatest secret to her? When she simply escaped because all she could feel was her own pain? His pain must be a hundred times worse than her own. He had taken a terrible risk telling her how he felt. He had stepped on to dangerous and unstable ground, onto the place that she feared the most. And she ran away, leaving him stranded on the crumbling terrain. How could she, after all the kindness he had shown her during the past three years? After he had made life at Dunder Mifflin bearable for her, sometimes even enjoyable? After he had always been there for her, as a confidante and a friend, no matter what the circumstance?

_I made the right decision_ she told herself over and over. _I made the right decision_. It was a rock to cling on amongst the stormy waters of her thoughts. _I made the right decision. The honorable decision. The right decision. I made the right decision. _Hadn't she?

Pam slid into the back seat of Phyllis' car and waited.

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

Jim sunk deep into his chair when she left, his quivering knees no longer able to support him. The pressure of the fingertips on his temples seemed extraordinarily distant to him, yet it was the only thing keeping him sane, the only thing that kept his splintered brain from breaking apart and drifting away. Some parts of him – his lips, his hands – were shrieking with pleasure, remembering the warmth of her breath and the silkiness of her dress. His ears thudded dismally, repeating the gentle sound of the office doors shutting over and over and over. His mind was in a violent shouting match far away from his body. _She kissed me back, she kissed me back, she loves me!_ whined the naïve, childish side of him insistently. _She left me, she choose Roy, she left,_ thundered the older half, the logical half, the adult half that had kept him from her for these last three years.

What was he supposed to do now? Was he expected to return home, to wallow in self pity, to pretend that none of this had happened come Monday morning? No, no, he couldn't possibly do that. Not anymore. Not after three years waiting for a moment when pretending would no longer be necessary.

Perhaps it was time to disappear. To transfer, like he had been planning to. To let Pam enjoy her fiancé, her wedding, her _life_, without being a constant – what? Problem? Distraction? _Homewrecker?_

That's what he was. He was the other man. He _kissed_ her. He ruined the purity of her marriage, the purity of her relationship with Roy. Not that he felt bad about betraying Roy, no, not that bastard. But Pam didn't deserve that. She deserved to be part of only the purest and most loving relationship. She deserved to be treated tenderly and sweetly, to be loved unconditionally. And he had to wonder – did she believe that she had that with Roy? With a man that she was uncomfortable sharing her thoughts and feelings with? With a man that showed absolutely no interest in their wedding? Jim couldn't believe such a thing. If she was with him, he would treat her so much better. He would – .

No. No. No. Stop. Thinking. Like. That. She left. She had the chance to choose and she told him very clearly, no. He had to respect that. He _had _to remove himself from this situation. Slowly, his body protesting every step of the way, Jim slid open his desk drawer to retrieve a sheet of paper and write his two weeks notice.

It took a surprisingly short amount of time to dash off a formal, untrue explanation of all the reasons why wanted to transfer to Stamford. He tried not to think of all the things that he had just signed away along with his signature as he folded the paper and deposited on Michael's desk. He stood there in the dark office for a few moments, shocked by the fact that by the time he came in on Monday everyone would already know about the transfer. Michael was incapable of keeping something like this to himself. Finally Jim turned and walked out. He resisted the urge to touch the corner of his desk where Pam had been sitting as he left.

The down button for the elevator cast an orange hue in the hallway, the only source of light in the darkness. Was the car taking much longer than usual, or was it just him? Maybe someone else was already using it. Maybe they were on the bottom floor, just getting in.

Maybe it was Pam. Jim let himself bask in this fantasy for a minute. Maybe she had come back, to see him, to tell him that she had changed her mind. Maybe the elevator door would open, and he would see her standing there, waiting. She would be crying, but still look beautiful, even more beautiful with crystalline beads of water sliding down her face. She would see him there, and would glide out of the elevator into his arms. Before he could even ask her what she was doing there, she would kiss him, like he had kissed her, without a word. And this time when he kissed her back, it would be without guilt, without sorrow, because she had chosen him.

Finally the light of the elevator button clicked off. Jim looked down at the floor, preparing himself to see the perfect shadow he knew would be stretching across the floor when the elevator doors slid open. Light began to puddle at his feet with the grinding of hidden gears within the walls, but no shadow. He looked up, but she wasn't there. She hadn't come back. She was probably in Roy's arms by now. For the second time that night tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. But this time they wouldn't fall – he brushed them away roughly.

The doors started to slide shut, and he had to lunge forward to stop them. His shoulders drooped under a huge weight as the car plunged silently towards the ground. He would kill for some elevator music right about now. Even some tacky, wordless song would be better than this awful, blistering silence that was gathering in the dark corners of his brain.

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

She remembered that Jim had come into work late the next Monday. She was staring at his empty desk when one of the cameras pulled her into the hallway for an interview.

"So, how do you feel about Jim's transfer?" asked Blake the camera man.

"Um… I'm not really sure," she replied, hoping that her shaking voice wouldn't give away anything that she didn't want it to. "It's going to be really… weird not having him around." _It will be weird having him around too._ "But I know that it's a great opportunity for him to rise up in the company… and he'll be getting paid a lot more… so I guess I'm happy for him. I really am. I'm happy for him."

She had to be happy for him. Because if she wasn't, well, she'd have to be sad that he was leaving. And if she was sad… it would mean she was unhappy with the decision that she had made. And she wasn't. She really wasn't. She was happy for him. She really was. Outwardly, at least.

She remembered that when he finally did walk through the doors he avoided her eye as he hung up his coat and sat down at his desk. So she followed his example. For the very first time, she passed through a full day without ever talking with him. She remembered her half hearted attempts at conversation with Angela during those two weeks that never satisfied the loneliness that gnawed at her.

On his last day she left early. She couldn't bear to watch him pack up his desk, to watch him walk out the doors for the final time. It was too much. So after lunch she set her phone to voicemail and didn't return for the rest of the day. Even though she didn't see him leave she could imagine his departure. One hand would be in his pocket, the other wrapped around the last box of his belongings. His shoulders would be hunched, his head slightly bowed as he nodded to the coworkers he wouldn't see again. Then he would go, pushing through the glass doors without looking back, just like it was the end of any ordinary day. This memory that was not a memory plagued her all night, keeping her from sleeping. The next morning when she came into work there was a familiar blue pamphlet lying neatly on her desk. It was the brochure for the graphic design internship in New York.

Roy never noticed her subdued manner during the month before the wedding. She told herself that this was a good thing. She had never been able to tell him about the kiss that she and Jim and shared that night. It was always her intention to tell him before the wedding, it really was, but somehow she could never bring herself to. After a week had passed, it became harder. What if he blamed her for not telling him sooner? Finally she decided that both their lives would be easier without the added stress on their relationship, especially with the marriage fast approaching. Even now she wondered if that was the right choice.

The weight of her secret lay heavy on her even as she glided down the aisle towards Roy. Clouds of scent from the white flowers on every pew rose up to her nose, flocks of admiring faces turned in her direction. She was particularly aware of her co-workers faces. What if one of them had seen the kiss? What if that person was to jump up and shout out the truth? What would happen to her, to her fiancé, to the new life that was suspended above her, waiting to come crashing down?

No one stood up, no one yelled. No one could change the course that she was on, except maybe herself. And she didn't. She couldn't.

That was all in the past. She was content now. Her life had firmed up beneath her feet – no longer was she standing on unsteady ground. The ring around her finger gave her a sense of security whenever she looked at it. Was she happy? Sometimes. But she believed that even unhappiness in a secure environment was better than happiness in a place where one wrong move could cause your whole world to collapse.

After Jim left Dunder Mifflin Pam formed a solid friendship with Kelly. Kelly was kind and fun to be around at times, once she was accustomed to her constant chattering. Some days Pam was still desperately lonely, but she pushed herself through by filling herself with Kelly's gossip. It was like drinking water to satisfy an empty stomach.

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

Stamford was as different from Scranton as it could possibly be. When Jim walked into the office on the very first day, his first impression was that somebody close to all the employees must have died. What other reason could there be for such a stillness in the workplace? He was greeted by his new boss with a simple "Nice to meet you," and a handshake. Really? No lame joke? No inappropriate comment?

His desk was nestled with two others. His new neighbors greeted him with small, friendly smiles and handshakes. He had to look at them twice to assure himself that he had really escaped Dwight. Sitting down in his chair (which he had to adjust to accommodate his long legs) he noticed that he had a great view of the reception desk. Maybe not much had changed after all.

As he grew more comfortable in his new surroundings Jim got to know most of the people in the office. All of them were extremely professional people, but they were pleasant as well. He gained many new friends his first week there. The receptionist, sadly, was never one of these. She reminded him strongly of Angela – irritable and unable to appreciate a joke.

The threat of downsizing loomed above this office like a rain cloud. In Scranton this threat had seemed so trivial, so far away, but here it was impossibly real. Especially to Jim. He felt as though he was swimming against the tide. As soon as he struggled away from Scranton he could be pulled back in again. Or he could pull Scranton along with him.

He had told himself that he wasn't going to think about her anymore. He needed to move on, to have his own life here in this new place. But he kept drifting back into thoughts about her. If the Scranton branch was incorporated into this branch would she come to work here in Stamford with the rest of her coworkers? Would she take the place of the receptionist here who, for all her condescending attitudes, couldn't seem to deliver a message? He dared to hope.

Hope turned into drive. The drive to do well, the drive to sell as much as possible, the drive to keep the company afloat, the drive to outsell the Scranton branch as soon as possible. Because he missed her. If he became something of a workaholic in the few months after he arrived in Stamford, no one complained. It never once occurred to him that if Pam moved to Stamford, Roy would probably come with her.

It came as a surprise to everyone in both the branches when Jan finally announced her decision. It seems that there was no longer any need for downsizing, since both of the branches were doing extraordinarily well. Suddenly it was as if everyone in the Stamford branch had removed their serious masks, and were free to be as jovial as they wished to. There was much more laughter around the office now. Only Jim was in no mood for jokes. His chance at seeing Pam again had slipped through his fingers.

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

It was strange how much the removal of documentary crews from Dunder Mifflin had affected Pam's life. They had been a constant annoyance ever since they arrived over two years ago, yet once they left she found that she could hardly stand their absence. She realized that she was subconsciously storing up information and random thoughts that she would have usually spilled to the cameras, but she had nowhere to put so many useless ideas. They nagged at the back of her mind persistently, driving her crazy for the first three weeks or so after the crew had left.

It had been a sad goodbye. Many of the office workers had grown attached to the familiar faces of the sound and camera men. The documenters left just after the first episode had aired, interviewing each person about what they thought of the new show before they packed up and left. Watching yourself on television was unsettling, to say the least. Pam cringed almost every time that she was interviewed. Some of the things that she had said seemed so stupid, or seemed to be said incorrectly. She thought of a thousand ways that she could have explained things differently, a thousand important things that she left unsaid.

Roy disliked the show from the first time it aired. "They twisted everything around!" he said afterwards. "They made me look like a complete jerk!" Still he watched every week because once the show aired it was simply necessary to watch it. He sat next to her on the couch every Thursday with his arm wrapped protectively around her neck, and for once she was uncomfortable with his familiar weight. Because there was Jim, fighting for her affections while the whole nation looked on. His love for her was so glaringly obvious on the screen, and it made her so ashamed that she had never seen it for what it was years back.

"I'm really sorry… if you misinterpreted things," she had said so long ago. He hadn't. He really hadn't. It was her that misread everything. She acted like a fool in love around him. Her laughs came so easily, her smiles so quickly. So many times the camera caught her staring at him from her desk. She had once had a crush on him when she first started, but she thought all remnants of it had been scrubbed away with the start of their friendship and her engagement to Roy.

It is one thing to look back at your past through the foggy glass of memory, and a very different thing to see it played out for you exactly how it was. The camera gave her the eyes that she had never used herself, and she saw everything. She had loved Jim. It was obvious now. She realized that her dislike of Jim's girlfriend Katy had been jealousy. And her engagement to Roy – ?

She wasn't ready to think about that. She didn't know if she would ever be ready. The show already had caused a series of fights between Roy and her. Their first fight was right after the Dundies aired, after the cameras caught her drunken kiss with Jim, a kiss she didn't even remember until she saw it for a second time. Roy was furious. "You practically _cheated_ on me!" he bellowed at her.

"I was _drunk_!" she screamed back. Still, a wave of guilt passed over her whenever he said that. What on earth would he say if he knew what happened between Jim and her on casino night?

Every Friday she skimmed the website to find out what the next show would be. Some weeks she awaited the show with dread, other times with excitement, based on what she knew the cameras had captured. But most of the time it was what she hadn't realized that the cameras had seen that caused a fight between her and Roy. The Christmas episode had caused a noticeably bad one. The documentary had already made Roy hate Jim for obvious reasons, but he had never thought that Jim might try to tell Pam how he felt. When he saw the Christmas card that Jim was going to give Pam, he exploded. He threatened to drive down to Stamford just to pick a fight. Pam, seized in a surge of protectiveness for Jim, fought him instead with her words.

She held her breath as she looked up the name of the next show, worried that it would be one that would shake the ground her marriage stood on even further. Her exhalation was one of relief. If anything, the next show would patch their crumbling marriage together. It was the Booze Cruise, where she and Roy would get engaged for the second, more important time.

On Thursday night Roy grabbed his keys and headed for the door. "I'm going out for a few drinks with the warehouse guys!" he called. Pam was already perched on the couch in the other room, waiting for the show.

"Wait!" she exclaimed frantically, dashing towards the door. "You can't! Not tonight!"

Roy rubbed his forehead and looked down at her with a smug smlie, as if he was talking to a slightly stupid or petulant child. "Look, honey, whenever we watch these things together we get in an argument. I can't do that anymore."

"But this one is the one where we get engaged again!" she pleaded. "Come on, it will be romantic!"

"I'm sorry. I already made plans. But if it's really important to you, record it. I promise I'll watch it later." He turned away from her and left without another word, and she let him. She knew that once her husband made up his mind to do something, he couldn't be swayed. Alone she hurried back into the living room. She wasn't disappointed or angry, she was just – alone. She slid a tape into the VCR, for herself, not Roy. She wanted to have this show forever, to show her why she loved Roy in darkest moments of frustration, like this one.

She watched them board the boat. She held Roy's hand, but her eyes and smile were for Jim, who she knew would make real joke about Michael's stupid ones. And suddenly she was glad that Roy was gone. Finally she was free to let thoughts come as they may, finally she felt no pressure to block feelings and emotions that she should not have. She almost laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of the scene where she and Roy sat at the table talking to Jim and Katy. The pairings made absolutely no sense. Any stranger that saw them would have pieced the couples together very differently.

When she and Jim walked outside on the deck together she cursed her stupidity. How could she have taken Jim's stares so lightly? She had assumed that he was just a little drunk that night. How could she have just brushed him off? It pained her to know that this was only one of the times that she would walk away and leave Jim standing all alone.

With the cameras eye trained on Roy she saw how truly inebriated he had been that night. His words were slurred and his movements were clumsy. Yet she clung to him, happy and sober, never even looking at Jim who had slumped down unhappily in one of the booths.

Later she had to laugh at Michael in the brig. It had been a completely humorless situation when she was actually on the boat, but now she was free to laugh all that she wanted at the bystander's perspective.

By the end of the episode her laughter had stopped, and her hand was pressed to the center of her chest.

What was she doing here? How could she justify this life that she had chosen for herself? She was married. _Married_. And yet someone else captured all her attention. Someone else had stolen her heart away while she was looking in another direction. And he still kept it, he had taken it far away. She couldn't regain it without his help. So, she could either remain here and attempt to grow herself a new one, or she could try to retrieve the heart he had so lovingly cared for the past seven years. She stopped the VCR and pulled the tape from its mouth.

When she locked the door behind her she left the tape lying prominently on the side table next to the couch. It was labeled carefully in her neat print, and a post-it note (one of the many she had taken from the reception desk after Michael had pretended to fire her) was pressed firmly on the top. _I'm sorry_, she had written on it. _I can't do this anymore. _

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

What kind of uninformed person considered Monday the worst day of the week? Jim could set them straight. By the end of Thursday night all he wanted to do was crawl into bed and remain there for the rest of time. Watching the show was almost like being near her again. But the past could never be repeated. Nor could it be forgotten. He already knew how this story ended. He knew that she walked away from him. And with that knowledge, the obvious sexual tension between the old Jim and old Pam was riddled with remorse for the new Jim.

The new Jim. The Jim that he could proudly show around Stamford. The façade, the illusion, the ventriloquist's smiling dummy. With the old Jim supporting him, the new Jim did just fine. But however hard the new Jim tried to cast the old Jim aside, it was impossible. Without the old Jim the flimsy shroud of the new Jim crumbled into the dust. And the old Jim still loved Pam with all the remaining pieces of his broken heart.

Tonight he had thrown himself into bed with self-loathing, remorse and devastation eating away at him. The sheets had wrapped themselves around his neck, every part of the pillow was as hot as an orange coal. Darkness engulfed him, yet he seemed to be unable to close his exhausted eyes. He forbid his mind to work, blocked all thoughts both good and bad from his brain. The green numbers of digital clock changed again, and again, and again.

He must have fallen asleep at some point during that night if he was to be woken again by a series of raps on his front door. He glanced over at his clock again – it was two thirty in the morning and someone was banging on the door of his apartment with increasing urgency. Who the hell would want to see him at two thirty in the morning? Childish fear overwhelmed him, and he groped about in the darkness for the baseball bat he kept instinctively beneath the bed before creeping out into the living room. Raising the bat over his head, he tore open the door.

He stood in the dark hallway in front of the elevator in Dunder Mifflin Scranton. The doors were open, letting light spill into the hall and puddle around his feet. He had visited this place so many times within the dark confines of his memory. But this time was different. This time there was a real shadow stretching across the floor towards his feet. And it wasn't a hallucination, she was there, she was solid, she was… perfect. Exactly how he imagined that she would be. The stray hairs that floated up from her head ensnared the light and were turned into a halo framing her familiar face. Tears flowed down her cheeks, but she was beaming at him in the sweetest imaginable way. She wrung her hands together nervously. And just as he had imagined, she floated into his arms without regret, without guilt, and she pressed her soft lips to his.

He was living a dream. For a moment he was afraid to kiss her back. He was afraid to move. This fantasy could dissolve the moment he moved from this position, frozen in the doorway.

But her breath lingered on his still lips, and he couldn't resist her any longer. The bat dropped to the floor, unnoticed by either of them as he let his hands fall onto the small of her back and sift through the coils of her hair. The new Jim fell away from his swelling soul in flakes, releasing the old Jim from his musty cage and into bliss.

For the second time it was her who broke the kiss. But this time as she pulled away her hands stayed tangled in his hair and her eyes glowed with pleasure and excitement. "To tell you the truth, I used to have a big thing for Jim," she said. The lingering doubt and confusion that hung like a cobweb in the back of his brain was swept away. She had seen the show. She had chosen him, and she had come to him.

"Well, he's cute," Jim replied, playing along.

"Yeah. And he's hilarious, and sweet, and whenever he looks at me all my troubles just kind of… melt away."

"Well, if you like him so much, don't give up," whispered Jim into her ear.

"I'm not planning to." She tilted her face upwards towards his, and he closed the distance between them. It was everything, everything he ever imagined it could be and more. Finally, after almost seven years of waiting he reached out and took her as his own.

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

Pam watched with mean pleasure as the movers struggled with an oversized couch. Their couch. Her and Jim's.

They had finally decided to take the next step forward in their relationship and move in together. Living together was a formality, really. She couldn't remember the last time that she had been alone in her apartment, or the last time that Jim had gone home to his by himself. But finding a house together was exciting. They had finally settled on a small place just outside of New York.

After she left Roy, Pam wanted to transfer to the Stamford branch as well. But Jim refused to let her do that. Now she was working as a graphic artist after spending two years as a student at the Stamford School of Art & Design. She had never realized that she could enjoy a job so much.

As for Jim, he continued to work at the Stamford branch of Dunder Mifflin. He joked that he could never quite cut the umbilical cord between him and Scranton. He was there for about a year and a half before Jan finally discovered his talents and moved him up to corporate status. Pam found it amazing that Jan took so long to realize what she had known all along. When Jim put his mind to something, he motivated remained committed to it. And when committed to something, he motivated others to follow his example. He was able to remain in Stamford long enough for Pam to finish her courses before being transferred to New York to become an advisor to the many branches of Dunder Mifflin. And Pam came with him.

. Pam assumed that he would ask her to move in with him while they were staying together in a hotel in New York. But he didn't, not right off the bat, even after they started house-hunting together. After looking at a couple of bad houses, they found one that he really seemed to like, one that she loved too. There was the smallest terrace just off the master bedroom.

"I don't know, the family room's a little small. Would all of our stuff fit?" he asked after looking through it.

"All _our_ stuff?" she breathed. Finally.

"Yeah," he replied nonchalantly. "Your couch is _huge_."

"Your mom's couch is huge," she answered, hardly listening to what she was saying as her heart leapt for joy within her chest. "It would all fit." She felt his hand slid around her waist and pull her closer to his side. Jim waved over their real estate agent and quietly asked for the offer as she leaned into him. He pressed a kiss into her hair, and they stood quietly for a few moments, wrapped around each other, looking at their new house with little smiles of satisfaction.


End file.
